Richard House - The Kills

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(page 45) Let me describe now what was happening inside our apartment. How this event brought down a deeper distress. My mother at the table, too gone to wail, head in hands, believing that this would be the last that we would see of my brother. My father, useless, did not know what to do with himself and hung, waif-like at the door. My sister kept back, and I urged her to pack. We would hide her in one of the other apartments. They would not find her. We would say that she had already gone, that she was working elsewhere, that she was now in a city in the north, and that we had not heard from her. We could say that she had died. We would take her belongings, all evidence of her and deny that she existed, say that their records were incorrect, that there never was a girl here, that we had no sister, there was no daughter. The Americans would be bound to come and question us now. Our involvement would be examined. This attention would need to be managed if we did not want it to cause us trouble. Looking about the room, about the apartment, as bare as it was, it would not take much to convince them that there was no girl.

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We hid her in another apartment, the room a chaos of broken furniture — it was not hard. She dug herself under the broken frame of a bed and slipped from view.

The Americans came in the night. They brought dogs. And now my mother’s grief grew into song. She shrieked as they came into the courtyard as they broke the doors and rounded up the women, hauled them into trucks. I strained to watch but did not see L— but watched as the women were roughly gathered, bound, thrown onto the back of the vehicle like meat. They took them away and left a team of men to clear the room, who threw out the beds, tossed the clothes into the courtyard, and then set fire to it; sparks rose and sucked the air, a column of smoke billowed upward. They threw linens, bedding, mattresses, clothes and shoes onto the fire, not caring that this might spread, that the dry night air would carry sparks into other homes.

I saw the face of my neighbours at the windows, brightened by firelight, who each caught my eye, and each turned away, slipped back into the darkness, wanting not to be seen. The dogs howled at the fire, strained at their leashes, and here — finally — we come to the worst.

One of these hounds released by its minder hurtled up the stairs, and found its way floor by floor to the vacant apartment in which we had secured my sister, it sought out the chaotic heap under which she lay and began to bark and howl and scrambled at the furniture.

They found her, the soldiers. Brought her out. Took her away.

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(page 47) My mother returned to the new ministry and came back exhausted, used up. They would not speak with her. Threatened her with arrest when she started to make a fuss. She begged, fell to her knees, offered herself in her daughter’s place. Attempted to explain that they had taken her by mistake, that she was not one of the women they had herded in the palazzo. She was a girl. Her daughter. Surely they had daughters themselves? Surely they had mothers also, who they would not bear to see degrade themselves? Could they not see that this was a simple mistake. She would make no complaint. She would be grateful. She would spy for them, inform on the neighbours, collect information. She would do anything if they would release her child. She is fourteen. Return her to me.

The man she spoke to appeared not to understand. Refused to listen, and when he had to, sat without expression, a wall. Stones would have wept, she said, but this man saw nothing in front of him, nothing recognizable, nothing from which he could draw the simplest strand of sympathy.

Outside the building she was met by a woman, an American who hurried after her. This girl, she said, had heard her, understood her, and realizing that the adjutant would do nothing, explained with care that there was a magistrate. One of our own people, and that my mother should assemble witnesses, set out a record of what had happened and have this signed by neighbours. The magistrate would not ignore us, with evidence he could over-step the adjutant and speak directly with the military commanders. There was hope in this, a little hope.

On her return my mother explained what we needed to do. Using D.P.’s paper I addressed the facts of the night before. Wrote first our address and date as I had seen on official documents, set out the names of the people in the house, wrote my sister’s name in capitals. After this we knocked on our neighbours’ doors. If they had refused my mother, they could not refuse the testimony of others. There were men who had witnessed this. Neighbours drawn to their windows and balconies — she had seen them, I had seen them — keeping safe behind shutters, but watching; she had felt them, seen them, knew they were there.

Some, at first, admitted as much. Gave their condolences. Shook their heads in horror. That it would come to this. After everything. Daughters taken, stolen from their houses. Floor by floor we knocked on each of the doors, implored each neighbour the same. Come with us. Come to the magistrate, help present our case, prove that our daughter existed, and that she was taken from us. Sign here. A piece of paper, give some testimony, if not your name then a mark, a simple mark. None of them. Not one. Would sign.

Misfortune is a river, and once it has found its course it will widen its banks, flood wasteland, vineyards and farmland without discrimination, swamp and lay the plains to waste. The same day my sister was taken, the British stood by as the museums were looted. Done with our homes, our palaces and museums were now the target.

We determined to see the magistrate without the petition. If he were one of our countrymen he would surely help us. The streets, which by mid-afternoon would normally be quiet, were hectic with activity. Troops, American and British, lined the boulevards, the shops along the main thoroughfares were shuttered, the ministry itself closed. Police blockaded the main arcade, at the port the ships’ guns faced inland. It became clear, as we ran from corner to corner, inching our way to the magistrate’s court, that there were fears of an insurrection. By the time we passed the National Museum the looting was done. The doors lay open, and a white thread of smoke blew from the back of the building. There were shards, glass from the windows, stones used to pelt the doors, and papers scattered across the pavement and into the road. Tanks faced the building and the men now guarding (surely too late) wore visors and masks so their faces could not be seen.

The magistrate was not at the court, as we should have expected. Instead, at the height of the looting, the Americans had driven him to the museum, and there was no clear idea what had then happened to him, except that he had failed to quell the trouble.

We waited at his office. His secretary sat behind a desk and told us that it would do no good. ‘There will be no other business now. They (meaning the Americans, perhaps the British) were working hand in hand with the looters. These weren’t bandits. This was organized, carefully planned. Much of what they wanted, the prize of our culture was gone already by the time they arrived. The people they caught were passers-by. They will be shot. Under martial law. They will be shot.’

He knew nothing of our sister. Nothing about the women at the palazzo. Nothing about the entertainments, and did not seem surprised by the news. ‘A car we could find,’ he said, ‘we know the names of every thief. A person.’ He shrugged. ‘They disappear. If someone is gone. I am sorry to report. They are gone.’